MIDNIGHT PRINCE: Empire of Sin

[Los Angeles— 2nd December 2030; 6:00 pm]

On a medical bed, a young man was resting peacefully, next to him, a green-haired woman was looking at him with a strange expression.

Medusa had lived for nearly three thousand years. Even though her time on Earth was small when compared to certain entities, this period of time was enough for her to witness the lives and experiences of many heroes and how extraordinary they all were.

From Heracles with his strength that could rival the gods, to Achilles and Siegfried with their nearly indestructible bodies, or Arthur with the sword of destiny and the heart of a Dragon.

All heroes had something special. A power that allowed them to stand head and shoulders above everyone.

A cheat code in a way.

'He truly started to build a resistance to my poison.'

Medusa was bemused. Resistance to poison was not rare. For assassins, ninjas and the like, it was a necessary skill.

From the time they were captured as kids to near the end of their training, they would continuously intake small doses of poison non-stop in order to build the smallest resistance.

It wasn't as if no organization had tried to do what Adam did but the result was always the same.

Failure.

Humans had the innate power to slowly evolve and adapt to their surroundings and environment. For how black people created melanin to fight off the sun while white ones lightened the amount of melanin in order to absorb more Vitamin D.

Some animals developed to run faster or others to have a stronger build. But all of this had the same reality.

Adaptation took years.

Evolution took ten of thousands of years or even more.

What Adam did was no different from breaking all those rules as if they were completely nonexistent.

After the explosion of power, Adam did not relent and continued to ask to be injected with more poison.

The only reason they stopped was —- She had no more poison or antidote from her blood.

What he had been injected with would have been enough to massacre an entire city or kill an army of the supernatural.

But in Adam's case. He managed to do the impossible and built a small resistance to her poison.

Not only that, she could feel that resistance growing and strengthening by a small amount every time.

He even reached the level where his body could counterattack. Taking a small sample of his blood had been enough for her to realize many things.

One— Adam's blood had absolutely no trace of any foreign race.

No matter how much she analyzed, his DNA and genetic makeup were perfectly that of a human.

No…It was far superior. It was as if all the defects that should have been found in a human could not be found in him. As if he was a perfect being made with nearly no imperfection.

The second thing was that — He had developed an immune system that could fight against her poison.

—And it was perfectly natural. There was no trace of magic or the power of law.

This means that, unlike her own blood, if Adam's blood was studied, it could be possible to create a vaccine and serum that would be beneficial for all humanity, even those who had no Prana.

Just thinking about this made her chest heavy and her blood race. Her mind was numb and she couldn't help but think about all the implications.

This power of Adaptation.

What if…

What if it was not limited to only poison?

What if he could build resistance to

'Just What race is he?'

Adam was something she had never seen.

A first.

—And this made her even more sure about who he was.

"Sir…"

She muttered a name while touching her neck carefully. Her eyes softened noticeably for a while as she caressed Adam's hair.

"How long are you going to act as if you were asleep?"

The face of Adam shimmered a little and his sleeping face was replaced by his eyes wide awake as he watched her.

"What betrayed me?"

"A woman needs to have some secrets, don't you think so?"

She smiled and Adam asked,

"Sir?"

"Why don't we talk about what happened? You were acting quite crazily."

Adam understood that she was asking to change the topic. But he was beginning to put two and two together.

Like this, the young black-haired man and the equally young-looking green-haired woman gazed into each other's eyes.

Adam did remember Medusa's small lesson and what he saw confirmed his thoughts. But it seemed that, for some reason, she did not wish for him to speak about it out loud.

Sighing Adam turned to look at the ceiling,

"I missed the timing to say an unfamiliar ceiling."

"Pardon?"

"Don't mind me. Just a small joke."

"I am starting to wonder if the poison had some effects on your mental capacity."

"Haha. Don't worry. I think I am still mentally sound."

"Someone sane would not do what you did. Was it even worth it?"

Adam grinned as he looked at his Book.

[Poison Resistance — (D+)]

"It was more than worth it."

Medusa could see many things swirling in Adam's gaze as he looked at something that she could not see.

She adjusted her glasses as she thought.

"Take this."

She showed him two bottles before placing them on the table.

"My Gorgon poison is finished and taking blood weakens me too much so you will have to wait quite some time before you can do that crazy stunt. Still, I have some small poison here. As well as the antidote."

She pointed at the Black and white bottles respectively.

"Be careful and only put a few drops in a drink or food. This won't be deadly. Then, five minutes later. Drink the antidote. Do this every three or four days and this should help you slowly build."

She grimaced a little, "I like slow and steady means. So promise me you won't do something that will endanger your life."

Giving a look at the poison, Adam nodded and smiled at her.

Now that he knew that his Adaptation didn't need death to activate, he needed to know if dying accelerated the growth of the Adaptation.

This was why.

"I promise to not drink enough poison to put myself down permanently."

—-He would just drink enough to put himself down temporarily.

"I know you are giving half-truth."

She shook her head.

"By the way. Before I forgot. Take this."

Adam took a small file and tilted his head.

"Why are you giving me a phone number?"

"Heh…This is not a phone number."

A bad feeling began to rise up from the deepest part of his soul as he felt like he should not let Medusa finish whatever she was about to say next.

" —This is how much you owe me for both the poison and all the equipment you destroyed in my two labs."

"*Cough* *Cough* *Cough*"

Adam's heart stopped beating for a moment and his eyes scanned once again the paper file even though he did not need to thanks to his perfect memory.

"I…"

"I can take an installment with no interest."

"Thank you."

It seemed like the power of money was still not something he could go against currently.